‘Kindness Of Strangers’ (2019) Short Film Review

Director Lucky Cerruti’s Dead Vision Productions delivers the short Kindness Of Strangers. I was fortunate enough to have Cerruti contact me about reviewing his film. I had heard Kindness Of Strangers mentioned by people on Facebook, so I was definitely interested in checking it out.

Kindness Of Strangers features an engaged couple (Ava Kostia, Eddie McCole) who are making wedding arrangements. They need a place to stay during the wedding and are also finalizing a venue for the ceremony. After realizing their budget limitations, they decide on accommodations from a service called Grab A Pad. It’s basically an Air BNB crossed with a bed and breakfast. You rent a room in someone’s house while they are still in the home.

Once the couple arrive to the location, the house and hostess (Leslie Dame) seem nice enough, so they settle in. They continue with their daily schedule until one night, things take a turn for the worse. The owners of the house are not who they seem.

Kindness Of Strangers is a modern day terror film that does for rental accommodations what Jaws did for swimming in the ocean, infusing the place with that element of paranoia and fear. The film is successful in pulling off the idea of: what if the strangers you are renting a room from are trying to lure you in and kill you? I definitely dig the modern day idea and believe its pulled off to the best of its abilities with its budget.

There are some nice practical make up effects. The film is not loaded with gore but is substantial and mostly contained to the finale. Clocking in at just over 30 minutes, the story is competently set up and executed. The intro to the film is done well and eye-catching. The material may not be the most original, but it works regardless. I noticed some elements, especially during the end in the basement, similar to the fashion scenes of Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Kindness Of Strangers is a cool tale of urban indie terror.

https://www.facebook.com/deadvisionproductions/videos/2473035086096104/

About Richard Taylor

Avid gore/horror/underground/brutal death metal/comic fiend. Got into the good stuff in the nineties by tape trading the likes of Violent Shit, Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Apocalypse, The Beyond, Guinea Pig series, Men Behind The Sun etc. Have written for a bunch of sites some now defunct and some still going such as Violent Maniacs Cage, ZFE Films With Attitude, Mortado's Pages Of Filth, Severed Cinema, Goregasmic Cinema, Extreme Horror Cinema and Twisted Minds.

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